


It's a Cold World

by Cactaceae28



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet, Empathic Ability, Episode: s05e14 In Purgatory's Shadow, Gen, Gen Work, Imprisonment, Internment Camp 371 (Star Trek), Platonic Cuddling, Pre-Star Trek: First Contact, Sleep Deprivation, Trektober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:05:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27030136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cactaceae28/pseuds/Cactaceae28
Summary: Internment Camp 371 is a cold, colorless, miserable place. Until rescue comes, the only thing Deanna can do is survive; but even if she briefly falters, someone else there is willing to help.
Relationships: Deanna Troi & Julian Bashir
Comments: 9
Kudos: 34
Collections: Trektober 2020





	It's a Cold World

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Viewless Winds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15211109) by [StoplightDelight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoplightDelight/pseuds/StoplightDelight). 



> For Trektober 2020 Day 15: Cuddling for warmth

Deanna tossed and turned in the cot, drawing the thin little blanket close and trying to find some comfort in the grimy fabric. It had been five days, or at least there had been five sleep cycles, since she first woke as a Dominion prisoner in an asteroid far from home.

Five miserable days, long and fraught with violence. The days here were a colorless string of moments without meaning and the Jem'Hadar were a blank wall of fervor and duty that made her want to recoil in disgust whenever her empathic sense brushed against their ingrained indifference to the plights of others. They were not as alien, as cold and devoid of life as the Borg had been; but they were warped in a similar way, made into something that she couldn't (nor wanted to) even begin to comprehend.

Still, she was a Starfleet officer; she had been trained for an eventuality like this. She could deal with the listless days.

The nights, however, were so much harder. The nights were cold and merciless. During the night there was nothing to do but think, feel and worry. There was no respite. Sleep was nearly impossible; it came only when her exhaustion overrode the rest of her senses and it was never enough. She had never dealt well with this kind of unrelenting mental stress, and now she was suffering for it.

Because in the nights when she was confined to this dingy room, just big enough to fit six cots and a bench, she couldn't ignore the bitter mix of pain, flagging hope and depression emanating from her cellmates, spiking in turn with their nightmares. Their minds reached out to hers from the unguarded world of their dreams, amplifying her fears like a resonance box.

Their combined weariness had percolated in the very air after their long stay suffering in this dreary existence, all of their crumbling mental fortitude compounded into a heavy miasma that threatened to choke her if she paid too much attention to it. The echoes went back years, for some of them.

She was doing her best to survive, night after night after night; but already the foolish hope that the Enterprise would come and Will might find her like a knight of old was becoming nebulous. A small voice inside hated her for that. Losing that dream felt too much like letting the Dominion win.

The Klingon general snorted in his sleep, woke and tensed; the air around him turned sour with his grim resolution to survive and the accompanying shame he felt, having made that resolve against the tenets of his people. He turned on his side before settling back into an uneasy sleep.

She closed her eyes, holding back a sob as his guilt sent a spike of pain through her head. In a way it had been easier the first night, when she was still under the influence of whatever drug had been used to keep her asleep since the moment she had been taken on her way to Delta Pavonis to the moment she was thrown onto the central yard.

\-----

She had been thrown to the floor by the guards, falling to her knees as she fought to combat her nausea when a pair of black boots came into her field of vision and someone crouched by her side.

She got her stomach back under control and looked up. The person near her was a human and in that moment of confusion she had been abjectly grateful at the familiar sight of his outdated, black and blue Starfleet uniform.

"Careful, your body is going to need a few hours to get rid of the sedative."

He looked over her shoulder at something behind them, and his words were strained when he talked again. "Can you move? It's best not to attract too much attention around these parts."

"I can, if you help me."

The officer nodded, got to his feet and helped her up. His arm was bony; in fact, he was slim bordering on unhealthy, but she held on nonetheless and set as fast a pace as she dared.

"Where are we going?"

"Back to the barracks. I'll admit I'm assuming that the Vorta assigned you to ours but it seems… logical. The Dominion like order, and you and I are the only Starfleet officers around." He grimaced, "they also dislike to have open spaces for too long and we… We were six, until just a few days ago. Parvok… they took him to the ring.”

The words were couched in a feeling of dread, the first emotion to register through the rapidly falling walls around her mind; it still melted away far too soon, but her senses were becoming clear again. Still, she didn’t feel strong enough to press him further, so she let the remark pass. There would be plenty of time for questions after all.

Finally, they reached a corridor on the far end and entered; inside there was a row of doors with incomprehensible symbols over them. The officer led her into one and guided her to one of the little cots. She sat gratefully and took a few deep breaths with her head bowed. She could feel several eyes watching her, so she exhaled one last time and looked up, ready to face the other prisoners.

The human officer was there, leaning on the wall by the cot immediately next to hers. Though he had warned her that they were the only Starfleet officers around, it was only now that the implications on that statement fully registered.

There were four others in the barracks, and three were studying her just as intently as she was studying them. The fourth was a Breen, laying supine on one of the cots and seemingly ignoring the rest. The other three were far more alarming: a Romulan, a Cardassian and a Klingon. She tried to focus on them to get a feel for their stance towards her, but the effort made her head throb warningly and she abandoned the attempt. Her fellow officer didn’t seem concerned about their presence, and that would have to suffice for now.

“This was your errand then? You shouldn’t have bothered,” the Cardassian remarked with a sneer.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to judge if I were you. After all, we Starfleet types are too stubborn to know when to quit, remember?”

“Yes, and just one of you is quickly becoming too much of a liability. Frankly, I don’t think this replacement will be any improvement on our dear departed friend.” The last words were delivered like a particularly brutal insult.

The Romulan woman shot to her feet in response, clenching her fists and snarling, “Do not speak ill of my subordinate, Tain. I tolerated it when I shouldn’t have; I shall not do so any longer.”

“Enough,” the Klingon boomed. “This is not the time to vent our grievances. Before we continue,” he got to his feet laboriously holding something in his fist. He fixed his lone eye on her neck, and after a second too long Deanna realized that he had been counting the pips in her collar. “I’m sorry Commander, but we need to make sure that you are not an infiltrator. Hold still.”

He took her hand with more gentleness that she had expected and prickled the pad of her finger with the jagged end of a makeshift tool, pressing to draw out a drop of blood. He rubbed his thumb and index finger together, smearing the liquid and lifted them to his nose. Finally he nodded sharply.

“She’s who she appears to be,” he stated calmly. At his words, the Romulan woman relaxed minutely and sat back down, though her expression remained blank. Deanna could feel a sort of nebulous resentment coming from her that did nothing to reassure her of her safety, though she couldn’t yet determine the reason.

“That’s magnificent news, really,” the old Cardassian commented sarcastically. “That still doesn’t resolve the issue of having her waltz in like this is a free Risian hotel. What assurances do we have that she’s trustworthy? None.”

“Where does this sudden concern for secrecy come from? If I recall, you were not so disinclined when I came here for the first time,” the human said tightly.

“And you have made me regret my magnanimity, I assure you. My work, you realize, might be compromised, and where would we be then? How will you stop the war between your people if you can’t send the word out? Do you even realize the stakes of what we are trying to accomplish?”

“I could help her, so I did. That is my oath, and I will not renounce it. For anyone.”

“We have a duty to ourselves first! I don’t think you realize exactly the position you are in, _Doctor_. It is not _your_ prerogative to decide such matters, no matter what your uppity Federation ideals say.”

The human officer lifted an eyebrow and sardonically retorted an acidic, “She’s a commander, I’m a lieutenant. If you want to talk about duty Tain, I’m _obligated_ to report to her as my superior officer.”

The Klingon guffawed, making her ears ring with the booming sound. The Cardassian narrowed his eyes until they resembled slits. “Have you ever been told that you are an infuriating person?”

“Garak has told me that. Word for word even,” the remark ratcheted the tension in the air between them; there was a viciousness that spoke of a deep-seated resentment in the deceptively mild words. They were talking about a person close to them both, one the Cardassian had hurt before.

“Ah, that we had met a few years ago. I would have enjoyed teaching you to curb your tongue.”

“Enough, Cardassian,” the Klingon intervened a second time, and for the second time his cellmates stopped, almost against their will, to listen. “It isn’t honorable nor cunning to hold our freedom hostage for the sake of your games. She stays.”

“By all means, if this is now a democracy,” the Cardassian blustered. “What say you, dear Major? Should we find a way to ask the Breen as well?”

The Romulan spoke without taking her eyes away from him. “I don’t like it; but I see no real alternative. Sooner or later, Parvok’s place would have had to be filled. Let it be her. There will be ways to have her be useful; or she will die as well.”

“Kalenna…” The human said, turning to the other woman.

“It was not a threat, Doctor. You are familiar with how this place works. If she dies, she dies. If she survives, she survives. I have no extra quarrel to settle.”

“I can see when I’m outnumbered. On your heads be it, then!” The Cardassian said, and got up. He coughed twice, sharply and walked towards the door, “now, I’m going for a walk. My legs are too stiff from staying in one place for too long.”

He left and the room seemed to shrink a little after his departure. The three other prisoners exchanged a look weighed by shared experience, and then turned back to her.

“Yes, sorry about that. I probably should have seen it coming,” the human said.

“Who are you? Where are we?” She asked, now that she could finally get some answers.

“I’m Julian; that’s General Martok,” he gestured at the Klingon, who nodded stately in her direction, “Major Kalenna,” the Romulan looked at them, but otherwise refused to react, “and you’ve already had the pleasure of meeting Tain. We haven’t been able to communicate with the Breen. You are Betazed, aren't you? Maybe you'll have better luck."

"As for where we are…” he continued, “this is Internment Camp 371. We are somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant, Commander. That’s the bad news. The worse news is that if you are here…"

He hesitated, and it was at that moment when all the pieces came together: the blood screening, the remark about the war, that moment of doubt: “I have been replaced.”

“I’m afraid so,” he said apologetically. “I was taken three weeks ago, from a burn treatment conference on Meezan IV.”

“I was hunting on Kang’s Summit,” Martok rumbled. “The doctor told me that the impostor who took my place was found and killed, but not before he incited a war between my people and the Federation. It is a grave dishonor and one I will live to atone for.” 

The silence stretched on, seemingly to let her process her situation, and it sent a chill of fear down her spine. As ship’s counselor, she normally had twelve to thirty appointments a week. Outside of that, she regularly consulted other professionals for the officers that had moved to other postings and whose cases she had deferred. What was her double telling her patients? What harm could she do in just a few days of unfeeling words, what progress could she undermine?

“We are trying to code a message and get it to my colleagues,” Julian said, as if in response to her raising dread. “I serve at Deep Space Nine, near the wormhole. There’s a transceiver hidden over there,” he pointed at one of the far walls, “which is why Tain didn’t want you here, or at least that is the reason he will give us when he comes back. Once it is sent, the Defiant will come.”

He sat down heavily, picking at the sleeve of his uniform. "I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about a doppelgänger found at one of the Deep Space stations?"

Even without her empathic abilities she would have been able to read the very real need behind his flippant tone; but barring a scandal, that kind of tactical information would have been kept tightly under wraps by Command. Perhaps Captain Picard would have known but she had no reassurances she could give.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know,” she said nonetheless.

"Fair enough."

“The question remains, why were you taken?” The general rumbled.

“I serve on the flagship,” she said. “I don’t know why the Dominion would decide to infiltrate it now, but I imagine that they took me because I would have felt the impostor, otherwise.”

Now that she had said it aloud, it seemed obvious that she would be a prime target. If only they had thought of it before it was too late.

“The Enterprise?” Julian interrupted, suddenly wide-eyed, “Wait, are you Counselor Deanna Troi? Your work on the correlation between serotonin changes and involuntary telepathic emissions in untrained individuals is astounding really, I have so many questions—”

Martok cleared his throat pointedly, and the officer flushed. 

“Ah… yes, maybe now is not the time.”

\-----

That had been her last moment of respite, before her mind cleared and the cacophony of emotions became louder and louder around her, culminating in this moment when it finally became too much. She couldn't go on for much longer like this, not on her own.

Luckily, she didn't have to.

She got up slowly, taking care to not make a sound as she padded across the barracks, trailing the blanket with her and feeling oddly self-conscious; but needs must and she was too weary to allow the usual social conventions to stop her. What value did they have here anyway?

Deanna reached her destination and bent to shake Julian's shoulder. His breathing changed abruptly, so she couldn't have woken him from a very deep sleep.

"Counselor?" He murmured, raising a hand to rub against his face. "Is something wrong?"

"No, at least nothing worse than it already is," she reassured him quickly and sighed. "Can I… Can I sleep here tonight? With you?”

“What?” he yelped, before something in her expression seemed to register and he added softly, “Can I ask… why?”

“I need a shield,” she whispered, “There’s too much feedback and I can’t filter out everybody’s emotions while we are confined like this.” Not while also keeping hers under control, not when they were all so negative.

“And you think I could help? I mean… of course, if you are sure. I don’t mind.”

He shuffled to the side until his back was touching the wall and she sank gratefully on the cot warmed by his body heat even if just to barely above the room temperature. They laid the blankets one on top of the other, and it almost felt like they could drive the chill away, at last.

From this distance, with her back to the rest of the barracks and the closeness of his human mind, far more familiar than any of the others on this rock, it was easier to anchor only to his emotions rather than the sum of every other occupant, massive but vague, and then filter all of it away from her, until she could finally feel like just herself again.

“Do you think they have exposed the impostor? Your crewmates, I mean?”

“I want to believe that,” he said. His aura changed, turning crystalline like freshwater, like he was trying to broadcast his faith to her and to the galaxy. She observed it flare and then let it fade away.

Focusing on the ebbs and eddies around Julian, it was also easier to bury the despair and find that elusive hope that only the two of them could share: that even now, their replacements may have been found out and someone, somewhere, was searching.

She imagined it was Data, with his keen eye and the empathy that he didn't believe he had, who realized the impostor was too detached and unmasked her with unerring precision.

She imagined Guinan had taken one look at the being in a chance meeting and known that she didn't belong.

She imagined it might even be Reg Barclay in one of their long subspace conversations, who would fret at an inconsistency that no one else could catch and cry the alarm.

She imagined it was Will, even if the thought of her imzadi interacting with the Other was not a comforting one. There had been something growing between them lately, something that she had tried to ignore, too wary of being hurt again. Would the impostor destroy that bud, to maintain her cover or simply out of indifference?

What would be left of her life when she returned to it?

She shut her eyes tightly, and in a fit of impulsiveness threw a hand over Julian, gripping one shoulder and burying her face against the other to forcefully drive away the feeling of being unmoored and lost. Wordlessly, he took her other hand and she felt less alone. The blankets laid tangled around their legs.

From this position, she could feel his heart beat louder. Like a cloud pushed away from the sun, the sadness in the air lifted as the touch of another person after weeks of being denied this simple contact made his mind light up in an almost blinding display of relief.

It was enough to help her relax further, to ignore her own dread at their situation and fall back into the simpler world of daydreams. She wondered inanely who his William was, who personified that beacon of strength in his mind. Maybe this Garak who would receive their call for help?

Thinking of the station made her wonder, would it be Miles, perhaps? Miles O'Brien, who was more observant than many gave him credit for.

She imagined the feeling of being transported out of here. The Chief would give them that exasperated stare the senior staff knew well, but she remembered exactly the mix of concern and relief that would hang around him like a shawl, the way his hand curled around her elbow when she had been too shaken or hurt to move unaided after a mission gone wrong.

She let out a small sigh. The night was still cold and miserable, the pall of depression still hovered too close. There would still be nightmares in the nights to come and days filled with despair. But for now, in this pocket of warmth, this island of sympathy she had found among the chaotic sea of her current dismal situation she could finally let go and

Sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts :)
> 
> Also, the names and ranks for the Romulan prisoners were taken from StoplightDelight's [The Viewless Winds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15211109). Absolutely a must-read, I just can't imagine Internment Camp 371 any other way than the one that unfolded in that fic, which was pretty much perfect :)


End file.
